52pc of Macron parliamentary candidates new to politics, 50pc women

Incoming French president Emmanuel Macron’s centrist movement on Thursday unveiled 428 candidates for June’s general election, 52 per cent of whom are new to politics and half of whom are women.The secretary general of Macron’s La Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move), Richard Ferrand, said that 52 per cent of those chosen from more than 19,000 applicants ‘have never held elected office’ and that 214 were women.Macron’s party also rejected a bid by former prime minister Manuel Valls to run as its candidate in June’s parliamentary elections, but said it wouldn’t run a rival against him in his constituency.Macron’s party, La Republique en Marche, proposed a compromise in which it will not field a candidate in the constituency of Evry outside Paris where Valls is the outgoing Socialist lawmaker.